Cash-strapped NHS trust pays £100k to finance consultant

The hospital put a finance plan in place last March after a damning report from healthcare watchdog Monitor. At the time, it had a deficit of £1.5m which was expected to quadruple over the year. Now bosses have admitted paying a management consultant more than £1,000-a-day, based on a nine-month contract where the consultant was working about 12 days a month.

Tameside hospital has spent more than £100,000 on a ‘turnaround director’ to stop it from slipping further into the red.

The hospital put a finance plan in place last March after a damning report from healthcare watchdog Monitor.

At the time, it had a deficit of £1.5m which was expected to quadruple over the year.

Now bosses have admitted paying a management consultant more than £1,000-a-day, based on a nine-month contract where the consultant was working about 12 days a month.

They say the expert help has enabled them to get back on track financially and save more than £9m.

The figures, revealed in a request under the Freedom of Information Act, come just weeks after the hospital was told to urgently improve patient care by the Care Quality Commission.

In response to the FOI, the hospital said: "Tameside Hospital NHS Foundation Trust can confirm that it engaged the services of a management consultant on a part-time basis to help identify and deliver financial savings.

"The daily rate, including all expenses (ie travel and accommodation etc) was in excess of £1,000.

"This represents the current market rate for the skill set. The contract covered a total period of nine months."

A spokesman added: "Like many NHS hospitals, Tameside hospital has been operating in an increasingly difficult financial climate and in early 2011 it became clear that significant steps would be required to help stabilise the hospital’s finances.

"Since that decision was taken, the Trust has already achieved £8.2m of savings. We are on course to deliver the full £9.4m of savings by the end of the financial year and that in itself is double what the hospital saved in the previous financial year.

"While savings of that magnitude cannot solely be attributed to a single individual, there is no doubt they would not have been achieved without the skills the turnaround director brought to the Trust.

"Tameside hospital is now in a much stronger financial position than it was a year ago."

Liz Degnen has been campaigning for change at the hospital since the death of her mum Betty, 79, from superbug C. difficile.

She said: "I’m pleased the hospital has found a way to save money – but it’s frustrating that it’s the taxpayer again who has to foot the bill for their mistakes."